Ruth 1:1-5
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Having been caught up for so long in our long New Testament study it felt a little strange to go back into the lectionary for a scripture choice for today. And what did I find? The Old Testament story of Ruth...an immigrant.
I swear, you can’t make things like this up. In the midst of the hysteria and bombast and outright lies circulating in our country this week – all about a terrible hoard of invading monsters, otherwise known as refugees, fleeing from horrible conditions in their home countries – refugees hoping to become immigrants – we have the quiet little story of Ruth, the foreigner. Ruth -- the one who persisted – and became in time the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king, and further on, an ancestor to Jesus himself.
Ruth is probably best known to most church-goers for the lines that show up in so many weddings:
"Intreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following you.
Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, your God my God.
But that is modern romanticizing of a story that is really about immigrants and the un-welcome they had found for centuries.
The story begins, as we heard in our reading, with Elimelech and Naomi, who are described here as Ephrathites. Ephratah is an older name for Bethlehem, and Ephrathites is often used to describe the people of the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. These two, with their sons Mahlon and Chilion, had left Judah, years past, for the neighboring country of Moab, because there was famine in Judah. This was in the time when Judges still led Israel and there were as yet no kings.
While in Moab, Elimelech died, and not long after both Mahlon and Chilion followed him, leaving Naomi and the son’s wives, Ruth and Orpah, alone and with no male to provide for them. Women had no legal way to support themselves – they could not own property (they were little more than property themselves) and without male support were expected to fade quietly into ... death, I suppose. A younger woman might manage to survive by becoming a prostitute – you just have to love “church” laws that allow this as a viable option for women -- but without familial support, an older woman had no real hope.
Levirate law does call, in cases like these, for the deceased man’s nearest male relative to marry his widow and provide for her, but Naomi is after all an old woman by now and the best she can hope for is to be taken in as a drudge in someone’s household. The two younger women, even though they are widows of proper Jewish men, are Moabite, not Hebrew, and therefore this law doesn’t apply to them, and so Naomi urges them to return to their own families. Orpah does this reasonable thing, but Ruth, not trusting the system to care about Naomi or provide her any care refuses to abandon her and pledges her lasting faithfulness. Whatever happens to them they will face it together.
As they leave Moab for Judah the roles of the women are now reversed. Naomi returns to her home and the country of her extended family, and Ruth is now the outsider, the immigrant. And here we begin to pick up interesting side-notes. While Moab provided shelter for Naomi and her family when they fled Judah because of famine, Moab is almost always portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures as a dirty, ugly kind of place that worshiped other gods – an enemy of Israel. Ruth, therefore, is not just an immigrant, she is a dirty, unclean Moabite immigrant, unwelcome as unwelcome can be.
The lectionary has us continuing the story of Ruth next week, and I happen to know that will be Leslie Carole Taylor’s text next Sunday when we make our road trip to Geyserville – so we’ll see what happens then.
But for now I want us to consider immigrants in the context of this story. This whole story gives God’s blessing on immigrants and those who welcome them. This would also clearly be Jesus’s point of view based on what we discussed last week when we talked about ‘welcome.’
But while Ruth is part of Hebrew Scriptures, so are other scriptures which are in total opposition to this ‘welcoming outsiders’ idea.
Ezra was a priest in the era directly following the return of a large number of Israelites from the Babylonian exile. In the Book of Ezra we are told that upon returning home he was aghast at finding the Hebrews mixing with outsiders: Thus the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and in this faithlessness the officials and leaders have led the way. When I heard this, I tore my garment and my mantle, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled.
It was Ezra who forced the men returning from that exile to repudiate the wives and children they had brought home with them – one of the ugliest, most repugnant edicts ever to come out of Israel.
Unfortunately, it also stuck. This ‘circle the wagons’ mentality lies at the heart of much of Israelite history. Israel/Judah had been pretty well trashed, with a large portion of its populous taken away in the exile and those remaining left to wither away. It was a time of fear and internal conflict when people who are afraid are likely to want to throw up walls and keep everything “pure” just like ‘us,’ forgetting that they were once immigrants themselves – brought out of slavery into a new world.
While the story of Ruth is almost certainly a metaphorical fiction rather than ‘history’ it is set in a time several centuries before Ezra and his edicts. It was, however, most likely written at about the same time as Ezra’s diatribe (5th century BCE) and many consider it to be a counter-story written specifically to counter the isolationist narratives like Ezra’s.
Both narratives are in scripture. Both claim to have God on their side.
We are still struggling to see which version wins.
I swear, you can’t make things like this up. In the midst of the hysteria and bombast and outright lies circulating in our country this week – all about a terrible hoard of invading monsters, otherwise known as refugees, fleeing from horrible conditions in their home countries – refugees hoping to become immigrants – we have the quiet little story of Ruth, the foreigner. Ruth -- the one who persisted – and became in time the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king, and further on, an ancestor to Jesus himself.
Ruth is probably best known to most church-goers for the lines that show up in so many weddings:
"Intreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following you.
Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, your God my God.
But that is modern romanticizing of a story that is really about immigrants and the un-welcome they had found for centuries.
The story begins, as we heard in our reading, with Elimelech and Naomi, who are described here as Ephrathites. Ephratah is an older name for Bethlehem, and Ephrathites is often used to describe the people of the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. These two, with their sons Mahlon and Chilion, had left Judah, years past, for the neighboring country of Moab, because there was famine in Judah. This was in the time when Judges still led Israel and there were as yet no kings.
While in Moab, Elimelech died, and not long after both Mahlon and Chilion followed him, leaving Naomi and the son’s wives, Ruth and Orpah, alone and with no male to provide for them. Women had no legal way to support themselves – they could not own property (they were little more than property themselves) and without male support were expected to fade quietly into ... death, I suppose. A younger woman might manage to survive by becoming a prostitute – you just have to love “church” laws that allow this as a viable option for women -- but without familial support, an older woman had no real hope.
Levirate law does call, in cases like these, for the deceased man’s nearest male relative to marry his widow and provide for her, but Naomi is after all an old woman by now and the best she can hope for is to be taken in as a drudge in someone’s household. The two younger women, even though they are widows of proper Jewish men, are Moabite, not Hebrew, and therefore this law doesn’t apply to them, and so Naomi urges them to return to their own families. Orpah does this reasonable thing, but Ruth, not trusting the system to care about Naomi or provide her any care refuses to abandon her and pledges her lasting faithfulness. Whatever happens to them they will face it together.
As they leave Moab for Judah the roles of the women are now reversed. Naomi returns to her home and the country of her extended family, and Ruth is now the outsider, the immigrant. And here we begin to pick up interesting side-notes. While Moab provided shelter for Naomi and her family when they fled Judah because of famine, Moab is almost always portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures as a dirty, ugly kind of place that worshiped other gods – an enemy of Israel. Ruth, therefore, is not just an immigrant, she is a dirty, unclean Moabite immigrant, unwelcome as unwelcome can be.
The lectionary has us continuing the story of Ruth next week, and I happen to know that will be Leslie Carole Taylor’s text next Sunday when we make our road trip to Geyserville – so we’ll see what happens then.
But for now I want us to consider immigrants in the context of this story. This whole story gives God’s blessing on immigrants and those who welcome them. This would also clearly be Jesus’s point of view based on what we discussed last week when we talked about ‘welcome.’
But while Ruth is part of Hebrew Scriptures, so are other scriptures which are in total opposition to this ‘welcoming outsiders’ idea.
Ezra was a priest in the era directly following the return of a large number of Israelites from the Babylonian exile. In the Book of Ezra we are told that upon returning home he was aghast at finding the Hebrews mixing with outsiders: Thus the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and in this faithlessness the officials and leaders have led the way. When I heard this, I tore my garment and my mantle, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled.
It was Ezra who forced the men returning from that exile to repudiate the wives and children they had brought home with them – one of the ugliest, most repugnant edicts ever to come out of Israel.
Unfortunately, it also stuck. This ‘circle the wagons’ mentality lies at the heart of much of Israelite history. Israel/Judah had been pretty well trashed, with a large portion of its populous taken away in the exile and those remaining left to wither away. It was a time of fear and internal conflict when people who are afraid are likely to want to throw up walls and keep everything “pure” just like ‘us,’ forgetting that they were once immigrants themselves – brought out of slavery into a new world.
While the story of Ruth is almost certainly a metaphorical fiction rather than ‘history’ it is set in a time several centuries before Ezra and his edicts. It was, however, most likely written at about the same time as Ezra’s diatribe (5th century BCE) and many consider it to be a counter-story written specifically to counter the isolationist narratives like Ezra’s.
Both narratives are in scripture. Both claim to have God on their side.
We are still struggling to see which version wins.
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